Choosing to Discover the Unknown: The Effects of Choice on User Attention to Online Video Advertising

Cheng Luo (), Zhenhui (Jack) Jiang (), Xiuping Li (), Cheng Yi () and Catherine Tucker ()
Additional contact information
Cheng Luo: College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
Zhenhui (Jack) Jiang: HKU Business School, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Xiuping Li: NUS Business School, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119245
Cheng Yi: School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Catherine Tucker: Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142

Management Science, 2024, vol. 70, issue 10, 6983-7003

Abstract: Online video platforms face the challenge of balancing the needs of their users with those of their advertisers. Although users typically prefer to have less intrusive ads, advertisers aim to effectively catch user attention. This paper investigates how the provision of ad choice affects the effectiveness of video advertising. We argue that allowing users to choose an ad to view may trigger a “conjecture-formation-and-confirmation” process that motivates users to pay more attention to the selected ad. Two online experiments and four laboratory experiments are conducted to test the theorized underlying mechanism of the ad choice effect. Study 1 finds when users are unfamiliar (versus familiar) with the content of ad options (i.e., they need to make conjectures about ad content), ad choice is more likely to increase user attention to the chosen ad. Study 2 and Study 3 show that the impact of ad choice on user attention is more likely to be positive when users are enabled to make conjectures about ad content, such as when choice options provide more relevant information about ad content. Study 4a and Study 4b provide more direct support for the underlying mechanism by showing that the ad choice effect is attenuated when users cannot form conjectures about ad content at the choice stage. Study 5 further demonstrates that the positive effect of ad choice is robust across different ad settings. Taken together, these studies show ad choice is more likely to boost the effectiveness of video advertising when the “conjecture-formation-and-confirmation” process is triggered.

Keywords: online video advertising; choice; user attention; conjecture formation and confirmation; eye tracking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2019.03291 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:70:y:2024:i:10:p:6983-7003

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Management Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().